Today marks the day of Hakme Beauty 2nd year anniversary. I didn’t do a blog post for the 1st year because I always call the first year: “a year of excitement + confusion + overworking + overwhelming”, but today I want to record my thoughts for the 2nd year and someday I might look back at this post and fascinate myself. I think I am going to write this post purely in English because it just flows a lot better in my mind, please bear with me.
I was up at 2am last night and wanted to call my Dad, it might sound silly, but I really want to hear a genuine, wholehearted “well done” from him. Since I left my full-time job, I hadn’t heard the word as much and as cold as my Dad is, his “well done” always seems to sound “proud and genuine”. Don’t get me wrong, over the years, many people have sent their congratulations and encouragement from the people that I know, and I am thankful for that (though many are just lip service). Why do I need to hear the “well done” so desperately? Only because I am human and yea, I do need to know that I am on the right track somehow and for the better part, as much as I am proud, I want to feel someone is as proud as well and my Dad always sound so much prouder than I am – yea it does massage my ego *grins* when I am looking for validation.
Who would have thought a girl started to blog in 2009 would wind up having two stores by end of 2015? I didn’t and it has to be beyond my wildest dream. To others, the dream might seem to come easy: “she blogs, she goes on YouTube, she gets a bunch of followers and she starts to have a store and then two…” When I put this into writing, it sounds so easy and trivial almost. Yes, what you see is definitely only a part of me, the part that seems stress free and always in control, perhaps that’s why some of you have that impression of everything came easy for me. I never did talk about the behind the scene work and maybe it’s about time to really kick in the reality (yea somehow I am in the mood today). None of these come easy and I am not superwoman nor Harry Potter, for all those years I blog, I blogged constantly and consistently, I basically had no weekends because I chose to make that commitment to my readers. Sounds harsh? Well, no one forced me to do it, I enjoyed it but at the same time I put myself under stress because my commitment to my readers (you) is very important to me. Then I expanded my field to YouTube, I didn’t let go of my blog because I still enjoyed writing, and on top of a blog, a full-time job, there are videos to be shot, edited and uploaded. Again, I chose to put myself out there in front of the little YouTube box, no one forced me to do it, my passion of wanting to share my findings with you got me going though the years of basically little rest. Then there was the 1st store, which was bloody hectic, on top of all things mentioned above, I had a store to run and made sure it ran smoothly. Of course I got help from Mr Honey, Shop Manager and Butler, I could never have done it without the help of these lovely people. But by now you could understand why I described the first year the way I did in the first paragraph. By November last year, there was the 2nd store. The challenges are very different than the first year. One of the biggest one is people management. I see people management as investment (maybe due to my Human Resources background), I want to be able to change their life for the better in the long run, however, before all that happens, I have to help them to understand what I see and see what I see. Only then, we can be all heading in the same direction. I am very lucky in the sense that I have great colleagues, whereby they are willing to listen, improve, change and work together. No, they are not perfect and me neither, and I don’t think we will ever get to perfect, we can just constantly improve. Their good attitude does make my job a wee bit easier, but I do constantly find ways to help them improve and to help myself improve and at the same time, I need to maintain the balance of not overwhelming and stressing everyone (but this in turn stresses myself *laughs*). At the end of the day, I promised myself when I started Hakme Beauty that I wanted to create a work environment that people want to work in. Hell, yes I haven’t forgotten that. As much as we are out there everyday to strive for excellence, it’s important not to forget where we come from and what we have promised ourselves when we started a project. Things change over the course of time, goals change; but the fundamentals shouldn’t and the values shouldn’t.
Now I mostly work from home on all the behind the scene tasks and you wouldn’t want to see “the working me” at home – “messy hair + shit face + checking system + writing things + shooting videos + the list goes on and on”. Is it lonely? Yes, it’s a lonely job. If you ask any YouTuber, they would tell you the same. My loneliness doesn’t come from I don’t get to see colleagues everyday (I am independent like that anyway), it’s a lonely job because I don’t get to hear encouragement/ “well done” upon completing something. The ironic thing is that now I am the person who say “well done” to my colleagues. Now maybe you understand why I wanted to call my dad at 2am in the morning *laughs*. Well, I didn’t call him of course at 2am, but I will call him certainly after writing this.
I hope this blog post doesn’t come across as whiny, because it’s not the intention. I want to tell you in plain and simple terms that when you decide to chase a dream, yes there are sacrifices to make, be them big or small, and yes you will need to put in hard work. The road that you choose to hop on is not always rosy and smooth no matter what others think. Also, it might take you a long time to start seeing just a glimpse of your dream. Yes, you might feel alone from time to time and have one of those very dark uncertain moment, but hey, ask yourself, “Is whatever you are doing important to you?”, “How much does it mean for you to be able to build your dream?” If you answer “Yes and A Lot”, then tell yourself to get up, pat yourself on the back (or call someone that would give you that encouragement) and then keep walking. Do not turn back and do not wander. Don’t get lost in the voices and don’t get lost in your journey. You will get there. I know you will.
2 years, it doesn’t seem that long, but we indeed have come a long way. And I’ll say I have learnt a lot – the good, the bad and the indifferent. I am sure we will have many more years together and a sincere thank you to all of you who have shown support and love over the years. I can’t say enough of these two little magic words, but THANK YOU! If I have a choice to start all over again, I would still choose the same path, hell yea, it’s just that important to me and YOU are that important to me.
